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Cabbage Pickle

A pickled cabbage prepared with turmeric, vinegar, and various spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Turmeric and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,776 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Cabbage Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Pour boiling salt water over the cabbage and let it sit for 24 hours.

  2. Drain the water and place the cabbage in the sun to whiten and dry for half a day.

  3. Boil the cabbage with turmeric until it turns a bright color, then remove from heat.

Pickle

  1. Pack the cabbage into a jar and pour very strong vinegar over it.

  2. Add horseradish, garlic, allspice, white ginger, mace, white mustard, celery seed, and red pepper to taste.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Turmeric + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cabbage + horseradishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together481 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turmeric + allspicetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Turmeric + horseradishtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together437 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the pickle and supplies the crisp texture that holds up after brining.
Turmeric
Gives the cabbage its bright yellow color.
Strong vinegar
Acidifies the cabbage, preserving it and giving it its sharp, tangy flavor.
Horseradish
Adds pungent heat and sharpness that mellows as the pickle sits.

The step that matters

Pouring the boiling salt water over the cabbage. Boiling brine that is too weak or too cool will not draw out enough water or firm the cabbage, so the pickle can turn soft. Using the full 24-hour soak is part of what keeps the texture firm.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, turmeric, vinegar, horseradish, garlic, allspice, ginger):

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, turmeric, vinegar, horseradish, garlic, allspice, ginger. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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